SBA List in the Headlines – December 26 – January 1

On Monday, Marjorie’s response to Jamie Stiehm’s op-ed entitled “Sarah Palin Is No Friend of Women in Politics” ran on USNews.com, combating Stiehm’s conclusions that, because the overall number of women elected had not increased for the first time in 25 years, the voice of women in politics had faded in the 2010 election. Stiehm’s opinion attributed this “disservice” to women to conservative voices like Sarah Palin’s, claiming they sought to rob women of their right to an abortion. Marjorie’s response cited the sweeping victories for authentic pro-life feminists like Kelly Ayotte in the U.S. Senate and countless others in the U.S. House contributing to a 70 percent increase in the number of pro-life women in Congress as evidence that the mid-term election hadn’t diminished the voice of women in government, but merely elevated a kind of woman who don’t see the right to an abortion as her cornerstone freedom. The response also corrected much of the misconstrued history Stiehm used to argue that Susan B. Anthony and other early feminists were not pro-life.

The next day, current RNC Chairman Michael Steele announced his re-election bid and participation in the RNC Chair debate SBA List would be cosponsoring with Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) and the Daily Caller on January 3. Steele’s announcement confirmed the participation of all six RNC Chair candidates and made the debate, already a buzz topic, even more attractive to national and DC media.

Later in the week, WORLD Magazine included a piece in its New Year edition exploring the phenomenon of the disappearing pro-life Democrat as a result of the 2010 elections. The article credited SBA List’s Votes Have Consequences project with the failed re-election bids of many Democrats who ran on a pro-life platform but eventually voted for the pro-abortion health care bill.